


What You gonna do about Me?

by karrenia_rune



Category: Gargoyles (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 20:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12660903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune





	What You gonna do about Me?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bardsley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bardsley/gifts).



Disclaimer: Gargoyles is the creation of Greg Weisman and belongs to Disney and Buena Vista Television. It is not mine. Note: the title inspired by the Beth Hart song by the same name.

 

The leather jumpsuit is snug and smooth and feels like a second-skin that slides right on over her own as she zips up the front. If she ever stopped to think about she thinks she feels different regard for the variety of material that she wears close to her skin. 

For formal dress galas she prefers the feel of smooth India silk as it slides through her finger and for filming episodes of the now-defunct Pack series she might go for leather or lyrca, or even spandex. 

However, as she packs the last of the equipment that she needs for this almost but not quite anniversary junket, lyrca is a must. 

Not only will it blend into the night and avoid being made by the local NYPD, but she also ordered it special so that it will even the high-tech motion detection and intruder safeguards that time, money and the ingenious brain of the founder behind Cyberbiotics could have dreamt up. 

If she resents that every year she has to go to these outrageous lengths, she's long past that now. She has only been caught once, maybe twice, three at the most, and that was early on when she and her target began this little personal game of cat-and-mouse. 

If the question had ever arisen of which of the two would be more likely to fill the role of one or other, well, it's one that Fox believes no longer matters to either of them.

She completes her inventory and heads out into the night, confidence and grace in every stride. Getting up high enough to come up above where the mobile HQ glides silently above the heads of a mostly asleep city of Manhattan is no easy task, but she's confident.

She slides down the zip line and unlocks the Gardiner of the harness that allowed her to scale up high enough. She could have commandeered one of Xanatos's fancy helicopters, but she prefers to do this the way it's always been done. In the back of her mind, she thinks, 'Really, there's no reason to argue with a classic, and if ain't broken, don't fix it.'

Fox comes down slightly off-target onto the hull of the ship the heel of her booted foot almost but not quite slipping on a loose piece of metal, as a light misty rain begins to fall. Not to be deterred, she regains her balance and heads to one of the many entry hatches using the over-ride codes that she 'borrowed'.

Oh, Halycon Reynard would argue that she stole them. On the question of both his codes and his technology they would definitely still argue about it, but she does not hesitate and continues to make her way into the ship.

 

The interior is still much as she remembers from her visit on this same day and time every month every year. 'They have different tastes in decor,' Fox thinks she got her taste from her mysterious mother of whom even at his advanced octogenarian age Reynard stubbornly refuses to speak of to her. It rankles, but not as much as it used to do years ago. 

Reynard seems to prefer minimalist: metal bulkheads, long metal corridors, blinking soft white lights in recessed nooks, and access panels. As much as the thief in her nature wants to hack into these information nooks and find what else her father and Cyberbiotics have in the spanner: stealing isn't what she's here for, at least not tonight. 

Besides if she had mentioned to David Xanatos what her plans for tonight were he might not have tried to stop her; however, knowing David, he might have even suggested that she add corporate espionage to the list.

No, she has something else in mind. Just then, even as she rounds a corner a familiar figure wearing the ever-present Armani suit and tie and the same vaguely annoyed aggravated expression on his face. "Oh, it's you," he says. Preston Vogel, her father's aide-de-camp, assistant, and personal confidante.

"Of course it's me. Who were you expecting? Maybe the Gargoyles?" she deadpans.

"Your sense of humor leaves a great deal to be desired," Vogel replies.

"Your father is not seeing anyone tonight. His catarrh...."

"I came to see him, and don't hand me any of that dry claptrap about his cough or chest pains..."

"Vogel, is that my daughter?" a dry voice asks from within the darkened interior of the room behind where they both stand in the corridor.

"It is."

"Come in, Jeanine." Reynard says.

Fox does so resisting the momentary satisfying yet juvenile instinct to stick her tongue out at Vogel, instead contenting herself with a smirk and a toss of her red mane of her as she goes into the other room.

"Hello, dear. A beautiful night, is it not? The rain is just now tapering off and you can watch the stars from the observation deck window."

"Hello, father." Fox comes forward while slowly removing the mask of her lyrca suit so he can see her face. Coming closer still so he won't have to crane his neck at an awkward angle from his seated position in his high-tech wheel-chair.

She wonders if the blanket that she had given to him the last holiday season with the chequered red and black plaid of their ancestral house is the same or if it is a replacement from fraying from those delicate long-boned fingers.

She is the type that would prefer to be constantly moving forward without being tugged down by the weight of memory, but somehow the memories of when she was much younger and she sat beside her father watching him play concertos, his fingers flying over the keys of the Baby Grand Piano in their music room rises up, unbidden.

"I saw some of those stars on the way over; they are beautiful, especially in a city like Manhattan when it isn't raining, or the pollution gets so bad you can't see the sky."

He draws a bit closer and takes her hands in his. "Yes, the stars are beautiful, but for the moment forget the stars and let me just look at you."

She nods then runs his old and age-spotted hands over her face, and through her hair. "Forgive an old man for saying these kinds of things, but looking at you. You are so beautiful, Jeanine. You remind me of your mother."

She pulls back involuntarily at that and shuffles her feet on the floor. "Don't!"

"Don't what?"

"Don't do that!" Fox shouts louder than she intended and with more heat. She does not want to hurt him, even after all the pain and trouble they've caused each other over the years, and not just because when she had chosen to marry David Xanatos because of her impulsive and mercurial nature. She had jumped right into it and only informed Reynard after the fact.

"Talk about Mom like that. You know I can't stand it!" Fox says in a calmer tone.

"All right, Reynard replies, releasing his grip on her hands and folding them back in his lap. "Why did you come here?"

"I came because it's what? The 12th anniversary of the day we started doing this. A tradition like that deserves to observed annually. However, if you wish to cut it down to say every other year or something like that we can work out something mutually beneficial."

"Sounds as if in order to see my daughter I require a contract, or negotiating terms?" Reynard griped.

"Whatever you want," Fox replies.

"I see. Is that all?"

"No, no. There was something else, something important that I wanted to tell you," Fox adds.

"I'm all ears," Reynard replies with a brittle but expectant smile.

Fox nods her head and steps forward with a smile coming up to his left side in order to whisper into his ear. "Congratulations are in order. You're about to become a grandfather."

As the implications of that simple statement only slowly catching up to him Fox turns on her heels and then shows herself out, retracing her steps as she does so. When she passes by Vogel who had kept watch from a discreet distance and leaves the same way that she came in. "Things are about to become very interesting."


End file.
